Controversial DNA sensation Hitler's genetic material checked - mass murder due to genetic defect?
An analysis of Adolf Hitler's DNA is making headlines: A British documentary diagnoses him with Kallmann syndrome, a developmental (including sexual) disorder. The conclusions are questionable.
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- A British documentary presents a DNA analysis of Adolf Hitler and diagnoses a rare genetic defect.
- The diagnosis is consistent with earlier medical findings.
- The conclusions drawn from the genetic findings remain controversial: many statements are based on speculation.
- Critics warn against pseudo-scientific simplification and historical irresponsibility.
Adolf Hitler is probably one of the most thoroughly researched people of the 20th century - politically, psychologically and pathologically. You might think that everything has already been said and written about the Führer.
Far from it. "Something about Hitler" is still going on.
The biography of the dictator and mass murderer continues to attract researchers, myth hunters - and television makers. The latest example: British broadcaster Channel 4 wants to have Hitler's DNA analyzed.
The results are to be presented in the program "Hitler's DNA: Blueprint of a Dictator" on November 15 - but some media, including TheTimes, are already reporting on the alleged sensation.
According to the British newspaper, the program provides "astonishing insights into Hitler's sexual development". It also raises questions about "his neurological development and mental state". All of this can be gleaned from the analysis of Hitler's genetic material.
Incidentally, the DNA was extracted from a scrap of cloth soaked in blood. This had been cut by a US soldier in 1945 from the sofa on which Hitler had committed suicide.
Historian Thomas Weber confirms on "t-online" that such macabre souvenirs were quite popular at the time. In order to verify the authenticity of the DNA sample, it was compared with old samples of Hitler's relatives, according to the production company.
A supposed medical puzzle
The DNA analysis then also revealed a posthumous diagnosis. Hitler suffered from Kallmann syndrome. This rare genetic developmental disorder can lead to delayed puberty, low testosterone levels and sometimes malformed sexual organs. People with Kallmann syndrome have a 1 in 10 chance of having a micropenis, the show emphasizes. However, it is not known what Hitler's underpants looked like.
Older official medical documents attested that Hitler at least had a "right-sided cryptorchidism", a so-called undescended testicle. The new DNA result would therefore fit into the familiar picture - without, of course, allowing any conclusions to be drawn about the psychological consequences.
Because this is where things get pretty fuzzy. Historian Alex J. Kay fables in the film that Hitler's developmental disorder would explain his "highly unusual and almost complete devotion to politics in his life, which excluded any private life."
And it gets even better: "No one has really been able to explain why Hitler was so uncomfortable with women throughout his life," Kay continues. "But now we know that he had Kallmann syndrome. That could be the answer we've been looking for."
These theses sound as if decades of historical research are to be replaced by a medical finding commissioned for a TV documentary. As if disturbed sexuality explained the Holocaust.
Between knowledge and coffee grounds
Things get even trickier with the so-called "polygenic risk scores". The researchers attest that Hitler had an increased genetic probability of autism, ADHD, schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Experts are up in arms about such statements. Polygenetic risk scores are not diagnoses - they are more like statistical mood pictures of the population. In short: oracles. And they say nothing about whether an individual will become cruel, manipulative or a mass murderer.
British psychologist Simon Baron-Cohen warns in the Times against "associating Hitler's extreme cruelty with people with these diagnoses. This can stigmatize them, especially because the vast majority of these people are neither violent nor cruel."
Old myths, new myths
At least the analysis dispels some persistent rumors. According to DNA, Hitler had no Jewish ancestors - a myth that is still being exploited politically today. There was also no evidence of classic schizophrenia.
The attempt to genetically explain Hitler's personality, his ideology or even the National Socialist crimes is hardly scientifically tenable - and politically sensitive. The British "Guardian" dryly comments that this is dangerously close to the thinking of Nazi racial ideology itself: the idea that blood dictates fate.
So one crucial question remains: just because you can decode the genetic make-up of a dictator, should you really do it?